


Unfinished Business

by mrs_timmings



Category: The Mark of the Horse Lord - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 03:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12225213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_timmings/pseuds/mrs_timmings
Summary: After death, Phaedrus still has a task to complete.





	Unfinished Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



> **Request:** I would love to see any of the survivors of this book haunted by the ghosts of those who died, either literally or figuratively. Alternatively, I'd love to see those who died encountering each other in the afterlife - what would they talk about? Would they argue, would they forgive each other, would they confess to each other? Or any individual ghostly character, watching what happened after their death - maybe a long time afterward. Some ideas: Conory being haunted by Midir and Phaedrus both, Phaedrus haunting Murna, Phaedrus and Midir meeting as ghosts, Liadhan haunting Murna, Midir and Liadhan after the jump from the wall. I ship Conory/Midir but don't require this. Either happy or unhappy works are fine with me.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters and make no profit by them.

Phaedrus had never imagined death would be so crowded. It had come as a bit of a shock at first. It had not taken long before he understood, though. People who die with unfinished business, with something that ties them to the world – quite often people whose death came suddenly - cannot just let matters rest (so to speak) before they went to their own rest. The unfinished business had to be completed first. The next surprise for Phaedrus (and he supposed for all the other shades caught this way) was just how many people’s spirits lingered in this half-life between the living and the dead. It was _crowded_. 

A little application of logic revealed the cause of that: he had lived in violent times. War tends to cut short lives before tasks have been tidily wrapped up in a neat knot and the strings cut. And so Dun Monaidh was crowded with ghosts. Not that everyone who died in battle left unfinished business behind. Far from it. This war had not come unheralded and the Dalriades had had plenty of time to prepare for themselves for the worst. But not all had anticipated their own demise, so there were plenty of lingering shades, each of whom, regardless of where he died, went where his unfinished business lay. 

Which led to that last and most enduring astonishment. It took Phaedrus years to come to terms with the fact that each unfleshed spirit was tied to one earthly spirit - a real person - and not necessarily the person the ghost would have expected to find himself bound to. Unfinished business, in the spirit world, did not mean watching over one’s loved ones. It meant exactly what it said: finishing off whatever one had started but not completed. 

Gallgoid had already been there, when Phaedrus arrived, shadowing young Brys, whispering his experience in the young man’s ear each time he drove his chariot. And Oscair Mac Maelchwn, a shadow with his own shadow hounds, whispering overdue lessons of pack-husbandry into the ear of his half-grown son. There were older ghosts, too, like Murna’s father. Not the worn out greying king Conory had talked about, but the laughing golden giant of a man remembered by Murna. Once her babe was born he faded rapidly, having seen her to motherhood, which had been such a deep yearning it had trapped his soul in this otherworld existence. It was from him that Phaedrus learned ghosts had a finite existence, sometimes measured in mere days, although others could linger for years. You will know when your task is done, he was told. 

And, always, the ghost was bound to one person. The disembodied need some tie to a living being for the spirit to survive and so, regardless of whether his task was finished, the spirit would move on to the Light if that person died. He observed, amazed, as one wife, long-dead, lingered by the bedside of her husband. At the point of death, his face turned toward her and his eyes lit with joy just for a moment, before both spirits raced together toward the Light.

Midir, he did not see. He had left no unfinished business when he caught Liadhan in his arms as he leapt to his death. His shade had gone the instant his body broke on the rocks. However, to his surprise, Phaedrus saw Liadhan. The first time he turned round in haste, looking for Murna and the babe, concerned about what Liadhan might be doing. But he soon realised she shadowed Tuathal, Lugh’s Mouthpiece, and his mouth twisted in a grim – but relieved – smile. It was as Murna had said: her mother had only cared for her as someone she could use. Liadhan had left no unfinished business with her daughter. Instead she dripped her poisonous ideas of the Earth Mother into Tuathal’s ear. Phaedrus trusted the wise old man knew how to filter out messages from another’s god and listen to his own. And it was only for a short time. Tuathal was old and the war had been hard on the priest; as his life ran out the next Spring, so too did Liadhan fade, until, with his death, she disappeared. 

That was something of a relief to the rest of the shades. They did not talk much amongst themselves, but Phaedrus could tell that the ghosts of men who worshipped the Burning One had not felt easy with the She-Wolf in their midst . Nor the ghosts of women, either. Mostly they watched over sisters or daughters left behind, their dwindling energies reserved as guardian spirits for family left too young. The living souls may once have shared her sex; but, as ghosts, they had nothing in common with the old Priestess’s hatred and venomous ambition. 

To his dismay, Phaedrus found he had no tie to Murna and his son. He had tried; but although he felt satisfaction as, from the other side of Dun Monaidh, he caught glimpse of the first stumbling steps of his boy, it was irrelevant to the spirit world. About his family, he had made provision for his death. He had given their future care into Conory’s hands. His job there was done. 

Instead he was tied to Gault the Strong. His driving imperative as he died had been to secure the safety and future wellbeing of his kingdom and people, made less uncertain by his death but by no means made sure, especially given the dire losses of the war with the Caledones. With his death Gault assumed the leadership of the Dalriades, declaring himself regent for Murna’s babe. Gault: practical, focused, hardworking – a man whose chief characteristics were dogged determination and loyalty, rather than imagination. 

Now, Gault showed a new intelligence about the changing political landscape caused by the Red Crests who dominated the southern lands, whose influence spread ever northward through increasing trade ties. Not that he made swift decisions; his adjustment to the new ways was more slow and steady. His chief advisers had grown used to the way he would mull over options at the end of each evening. As he listened to the harper, Gault drew patterns in the spilled wine or heather beer on the table, face turned toward distant horizons. Those sitting on the stools beside his often felt a chill, no matter how hot the day had been. Gault could be heard muttering strange words as he drew peculiar patterns. Some said his eyes took on a haunted quality; others said he was touched by the fey – a few even whispered about how he had gone half-mad. However, no one challenged: ever since he had started ruling on behalf of the baby king, Gault had become an inspired leader who ruled strongly and wisely. They said he had the gods on his side, and a host of the dead to follow wherever he led.

War came in the year of his son’s thirteenth summer. The Caledones had grown too bold and Dalriades’ cattle runs had been raided once too often. Phaedrus sat behind Gault in the war council as he planned the defence of Earra-Ghyl. Conory had married several years before. His wife had born two daughters in quick succession, dying in labour with her last child, a stillborn son. Murna was now raising three children. Conory was a sensible elder of the tribe now. He had not dyed his locks for several years now; someone else set the fashions. Phaedrus was impressed as he listened to Conory’s suggestions about a feint to the west to draw in the Caledones. 

The red-streaked dawn heralded a drizzly morn which cleared gradually, leaving dampness to the atmosphere, that added foreboding to the day. The Dalriades were on home ground and knew well how to use the contours of the land in their favour. Camped as they were by a shallow pool at the side of the mountain river, the Caledones were particularly vulnerable to the sudden flood that flashed downstream once the temporary dam had been kicked aside. Their orderly camp disintegrated into disconnected knots of people trying to save either themselves or their belongings from the dark swirling waters. 

Battle engaged too swiftly to allow the enemy time to recover. Conory’s charge, seemingly driven back easily, drew a third of the Caledones off in pointless chase while the main force of the warriors, led by Gault, attacked the rest who regrouped hastily. Gault swung his axe in circles, cutting a swathe through younger men in his drive toward the Caledones king, also young. Experience held the day, but Gault turned round to meet one knife thrust into his side from the man’s weapon-bearer, before a second knife hamstrung him. His knees buckled and he fell. As Gault gasped, blood bubbling at his lips, Phaedrus had a few moments to notice Conory’s shade join the field, one moment for his knowing eyes to meet his old friend’s startled gaze, before true death descended. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author’s Notes:** I was also inspired by the passage: “Gault had dipped a finger in the spilled wine, and as though not conscious of what he was doing, had begun to draw patterns on the table-top as he talked. It was a trick that Phaedrus was to come to know well as time went by.” (in Chpt 3 (top p. 29 in the Oxford University Press paperback edition published 1975)


End file.
